I have read the article several times just in case I missed something and I didn't see the NRA mentioned one time, though the Constitution of the United States was and thats what this is based on ... If I missed something please point it out to me ... I am a life member of the NRA and feel that you have to give credit where credit is due, in this instance I credit the Constitution and the Supreme Court for upholding that ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

This was not an NRA victory. They didn't even get involved until late in the process, and then only when they saw how bad they were going to look if this suit won and they weren't involved. That won't stop them from claiming this as their victory however, and to some extent it legitimately may be, but the fact remains they did not lead this effort.
I'm an NRA member and all for them conceptually, but an honest appraisal of NRA in recent years shows them to be far more pro-NRA than pro-2nd ammendment.
There is still a lot of work to be done and NRA will have many opportunities to display some serious second ammendment fervor. Now that the big victory has been won I look for them to be involved in a lot of local suits, which is the downstream work necessary to put teeth into this victory.

But first he had to fight the city of Chicago all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where today he gave a victory speech after the high court ruled against the city's handgun ban.

"I am so happy. I am so happy," McDonald, 76, exclaimed as he left the Supreme Court building this morning.

As he spoke, people approached him, shook his hand and congratulated him.

Nattily dressed in a dark suit, light blue shirt and lilac handkerchief in his breast pocket, McDonald seemed oblivious to the sweltering, ninety-something temperatures gripping the city. It was his second trip ever to the Supreme Court, having come beforehand for oral arguments.

McDonald said his victory gives law-abiding people the chance to defend themselves "against drug dealers and gangbangers across the United States." He said he hoped people would be safer because of the decision and that he worried about others more than himself.

The South Sider also said he didn't feel he would be threatened by criminals because of the case. "I believe they now will think twice," he said.

Asked by a reporter what type of handgun he would buy, he did not miss a beat. "I don't have no preference right now. I can use all of them," he said.

In a one-page statement read to a barrage of reporters, McDonald opened by thanking Jesus Christ, then his attorneys, then his fellow plaintiffs and finally "all the wonderful people all across America who have been supportive of the Second Amendment and our right to defend ourselves."

He also thanked the justices. "Last but not least, I'm very grateful to the justices of this high court for having the courage to right a wrong, which has impacted many lives long ago and that will protect lives for many years to come."

Meanwhile, back in Chicago, others who sued the city celebrated at a news conference at the Hotel Allegro in the Loop.

"I'm kind of in shock a little bit," said David Lawson, 45, who wore a black suit and maroon dress shirt for the occasion. "But I'm certainly feeling ecstatic."

His wife Colleen Lawson, 52, added, "Just like in the Wild West of the movies, there is a higher court," she said. "That higher court is the constitution of the United States."

When asked about Mayor Richard Daley's plans to institute new restrictions following the decision, their attorney David Sigale called it a "knee-jerk" reaction and said they would be prepared to challenge "all city measures that serve to hinder and prevent the exercise of Chicagoans' constitutional rights."

Instead,he and his clients urged the city to focus more on education and job development to help reduce violence.

"The gun ban, I feel, has been used as a smokescreen by politicians," said Donald Moran, president of the Illinois State Rifle Association.

In the lower courts, NRA and affiliated individuals filed several companion cases against Chicago and its gun-banning suburbs. The other defendants folded, but Chicago and the Village of Oak Park soldiered on. The three cases – ours (McDonald), NRA v. Chicago, and NRA v. Oak Park – were considered together in the Court of Appeals.

Dems had to run pro-gun candidates in the last few years in many regions of the country in order for them to get elected.

Those pro-gun Dems, along with pro gun Republicans make new Federal laws except in an extreme case most unlikely.

Holder was shot down within the first three months of the Obama administration by approximately 50 Dem members of the House when he expressed interest in enacting new gun laws....

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AS AN EXAMPLE

U.S. House Approves Gun Rights Bill

May 20, 2009

This afternoon's pro-gun vote in the U.S. House of Representatives wasn't supposed to happen.

Ever since it looked like a Democrat had a good shot at the White House, gun rights groups have been loading for bear. One example: Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman published a book last year titled These Dogs Don't Hunt: The Democrats' War On Guns, which wondered if it's "something Democrats drink that causes them to climb aboard the Gun Control Express."

Candidate Barack Obama's record on the Second Amendment was anything but supportive; he appears to have once endorsed a complete ban on handgun possession, though aides claimed someone else filled out the survey. Other prominent Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Henry Waxman, and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, seemed equally enthusiastic about new restrictions targeting law-abiding gun owners.

So what persuaded a sizable majority of the House and Senate to vote for a bill lauding the "the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens?" (Part of the credit card-related legislation that the House approved today by a 249-147 vote repeals a ban on carrying weapons on federal lands.)

Perhaps the most important reason is that Democrats strengthened their grip on Congress by enlisting more pro-gun members from western and rural districts who have been far more sympathetic to firearm ownership.

This reflects broader public sentiment. A CNN poll last month found that only 39 percent of Americans want stricter gun laws, down from 50 percent in 2000. Meanwhile, support for relaxing gun laws, some of which are extremely strict, is up.

No wonder that 65 "Blue Dog" House Democrats wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder in March saying they were "strong supporters of the Second Amendment" and would "actively oppose any effort to reinstate" a ban on the sale of semi-automatic rifles with features such as a folding stock or pistol grip. And no wonder that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer -- who has an "F" rating from the National Rifle Association -- yesterday seemed to concede temporary defeat on firearms-related legislation.

David Kopel, research director at the Colorado-based Independence Institute and author of a number of books supporting gun rights, believes that gun politics have shifted along with public sentiment. "If you take away the Blue Dogs, they're back in the minority," David Kopel, told CBSNews.com in a recent interview, referring to Democrats. "There's nothing they can do to endanger Blue Dogs like making gun control a major national topic like it was in the early '90s in the Clinton administration."

Today's vote gave Second Amendment groups something to crow about. Gun Owners of America told supporters that their activism "has finally broken through." Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms called it a "victory for gun rights and common sense," and the National Rifle Association said it was a "major repudiation of the gun control community's anti self-defense agenda."

The Brady Campaign, for its part, called the legislation "dangerous" and noted that: "By attaching this language to an unrelated bill designed to protect credit card users, those pushing more guns in more places have insulated themselves from any possible chance of a veto by President Obama."

That's one thing, at least, that both sides can agree on. Another example is a proposal to grant Washington, D.C. a voting representative in the U.S. Congress -- a measure that cleared the Senate but has stalled in the House.

The reason? Pro-gun Democrats joined pro-gun Republicans in inserting language that would repeal significant portions of Washington, D.C.'s gun control law -- which the U.S. Supreme Court deemed so Draconian it partially overruled last year. But city officials have been fighting a rearguard battle ever since, including insisting that standard semiautomatic pistols qualify as "machine guns," which has led to a second federal lawsuit.

As a side note, today's vote doesn't mean that anyone can carry a gun on all federal lands. Assuming Mr. Obama signs the measure, it would reinstate regulations from the outgoing Bush administration, which say that the federal government may not prohibit someone from possessing a firearm on public lands as long as it's permitted under state law.

Not much would change in states like California that are reluctant to grant concealed carry permits, or that don't grant them at all. The bigger difference would be in states that are more willing to grant permits, or which require no advance permission.

And the biggest difference may be that, at least given the current membership of the U.S. Congress, supporters of gun rights appear to have reason to be optimistic for the first time in many, many years.

Yikes....is this a generational thing? Where have all these so-called pro-gun people been the last hundred years or, so?

Obama has refrained from attacking because he knows "the time is not right." He will never waste a "crisis" to push his agenda. The cultural perception of a "gun crisis" has not taken place-yet. Democrats know gun-control advocacy is political suicide in popular culture-at this time.

The NRA has cultivated a cultural climate which VALUES firearms possession for over 100 years. It is ingrained in the collective cultural subconscious to the chagrin of anti-gunners.

Anyone that minimizes the NRA's contribution to a pro-gun cultural value system is either ignorant or, stupid......

The NRA is being taken to task for poor performance in McDonald v. Chicago.

We need an aggressive NRA, not a passive NRA.

Regardless, there are some good points here. Please take them as constructive criticism of the NRA, in order to make it better.

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NRA Shoots Itself in the Foot

Posted by Ilya Shapiro

I previously blogged about the NRA’s misbegotten motion, which the Supreme Court granted, to carve 10 minutes of oral argument time away from the petitioners in McDonald v. Chicago. Essentially, there was no discernable reason for the motion other than to ensure that the NRA could claim some credit for the eventual victory, and thus boost its fundraising.

Well, having argued that petitioners’ counsel Alan Gura insufficiently covered the argument that the Second Amendment should be “incorporated” against the states via the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, the NRA has now filed a brief that fails even to reference the four biggest cases regarding incorporation and substantive due process. That is, the NRA reply brief contains no mention of Washington v. Glucksberg (1997), Benton v. Maryland (1969), Duncan v. Louisiana (1968), or Palko v. Connecticut (1937). (The NRA did cite those cases in its opening brief.) What is more, it also lacks a discussion of Judge O’Scannlain’s magisterial Ninth Circuit opinion in Nordyke v. King (2009), which the Supreme Court might as well cut and paste regardless of which constitutional provision it uses to extend the right to keep and bear arms to the states!

I should add that the petitioners’ reply brief does cite all of those aforementioned cases (as well as the “Keeping Pandora’s Box Sealed” law review article I co-authored with Josh Blackman). I leave it to the reader to determine whether it is Alan Gura or the NRA who is better positioned to argue substantive due process — or any other part of the McDonald case.

For more on the rift between the McDonald petitioners and the NRA, see this story in today’s Washington Post (in which I’m quoted, full disclosure, after a lengthy interview I gave the reporter last week).

(Full disclosure again: Alan Gura is a friend of mine and of Cato, and I suppose I should also say that I’ve participated in NRA-sponsored events in the past.)

I would not dispute that with you but cannot see the NRA letting an article out without them being mentioned in it if they were in fact a part of it ... The NRA as of late has a less than stellar reputation for peformance and seems to be as someone said more Pro NRA, than Pro the Second Ammendment ... I have been a life member of the NRA for many years but see some of the flaws in many of the issues they pursue or do not pursue at times, most other members probably believe they are Perfect to the letter and never give it a second thought ... WPT ... (YAC) ...

How are things going in general commies. How do you like the country now that Obammie and his commie Democratic friends are running everything. Looks to me like they are running everything into the ground.